Apple Aims to Finalize its First Car by 2019

September 21, 2015

Daisuke Wakabayashi, for the WSJ, reports that Apple’s car program is now a “committed project”. Apple is accelerating its efforts to bring a car to market within, roughly, the next five years. It reportedly has 600 people on the project and intends to triple its size. Apple’s first car, Wakabayashi’s sources say, won’t be fully autonomous.

Product definitions and schedules change. 2019, 2020 – the precise year matters less than this fact: Apple has committed to this project.

It’s easy to understand why: better cars mean better living and a better environment for millions of people.

The saying is “Software is eating the world” but, really, it should be “Computers are eating the world”. When a company understands computing – industrial design, operating system, user interface, security, processors, sensors, networking, power management – it’s not surprising that it has the ambition to tackle another product that computers are transforming. Right now, computers are eating cars. Apple knows computers. And consumers, and transitions.

As Apple explores and builds it supply chain, we’ll hear more about the car project. What we won’t hear about, though, for a long time, is the nature of the innovations that Apple has in store: industrial design, interface design, cabin design, and battery improvements, among other things – and those are just examples at the core product level.